Olive Shapley
Olive Mary Shapley (10 April 1910, Peckham, London – 13 March 1999, Powys, Wales1) was a British radio producer and broadcaster. As an undergraduate at St Hugh's College, Oxford from 1929 she soon met her lifelong friend Barbara Betts, the future Labour politician Barbara Castle; the two women spent their holidays together, but unlike Betts, Shapley was briefly drawn to communism.1 After a brief unhappy period working for the Workers' Educational Association and teaching at several schools2 she joined the BBC in 1934 as an organiser of Children's Hour programming in Manchester, but soon developed an interest in documentary features as an assistant producer. This was not without its problems. During a live programme called Men Talking,3link Shapley had to use placards requesting Durham miners "not say bugger or bloody", one incident of several which persuaded BBC Director General Sir John Reith to insist on broadcasts being scripted.4 Using a recording van, weighing "seven tons when fully loaded",5 Shapley recorded actuality, which was innovative at the time, but the broadcast of swear words could now be avoided.4 She thought a claim by Paddy Scannell and David Cardiff that she was an innovator as being expressed in "very flattering terms".6 With Joan Littlewood in 1939 she created The Classic Soil (the programme still exists)7 which compared the social conditions of the day with those observed a century earlier by Friedrich Engels. Decades later, Shapley thought it "probably the most unfair and biased programme ever put out by the BBC".8 Other programmes from this period included the features Steel (1937), Cotton and Wool (both 1939).9 In 1939, Shapley went freelance after her marriage to John Salt, the BBC's programme director in the North region; the couple worked for the BBC in New York for much of the war. Salt, the BBC's North America assistant director (1942–44) and later director (1944–45), died suddenly on 26 December 1947.10 Following the war, Shapley became a regular presenter of Woman's Hour, a programme with which she was associated ("on and off")11 for over twenty years, producing the programme between 1949 and 1953. Meanwhile, she began to develop a career as a presenter in television. In 1959 she took the six week BBC television training course, enabling her to become a producer in the newer medium.12 Though largely based in Manchester again, from where she broadcast on television, she regularly commuted to London for some years. In the mid-1960s her Manchester home became a refuge (as a charitable trust) for single mothers and later, in the late 1970s, for the Vietnamese boat people.13 Olive Shapley published her autobiography, Broadcasting a Life, in 1996. References 1.^ Jump up to: a b Allan Shaw Obituary: Olive Shapley, The Independent, 20 March 1999 2.Jump up ^ Olive Shapley Broadcasting a Life, London: Scarlet Pres, 1996, p. 30 3.Jump up ^ Michael Vestey "Keep it mild", The Spectator, 18 January 2003, as reproduced on the Find Articles website. Shapley though (Broadcasting a Life, p.46) believed the incident occurred during Coal (17 November 1938). 4.^ Jump up to: a b Peter M. Lewis "Referable Words", in Paddy Scannell (ed) Broadcast Talk, London: Sage, p. 14 5.Jump up ^ Olive Shapley Broadcasting A Life, London: Scarlet Pres, 1996, p.48-49 quoting David Cardiff and Paddy Scannell A Social History of British Broadcasting, 1922-39, Oxford: Blackwell, 1991, p.345 6.Jump up ^ Shapley Broadcasting a Life, p. 51. The reference is to Paddy Scannell and David Cardiff A Social History of British Broadcasting, 1922-39, Oxford: Blackwell, 1991, p.345 7.Jump up ^ "Help for Researchers: Radio recordings: social history", British Library 8.Jump up ^ Shapley Broadcasting a Life, p.54 9.Jump up ^ Tim Crook Radio Drama Theory, London: Routledge, 1999, p.205 10.Jump up ^ Billboard, 3 January 1948, p.11 11.Jump up ^ Shapley Broadcasting a Life, p.124 12.Jump up ^ Shapley Broadcasting a Life, pp. 160-61 13.Jump up ^ Woman's Hour, 9 April 2010, (BBC website) External links Coal, broadcast 17 November 1938, BBC Archive site We Have Been Evacuated, documentary recorded in September 1939 presented and produced by Olive Shapley, BBC Archive site Woman's Hour, 9 April 2010 (iPlayer sound file) Category:1910 births Category:1999 deaths Category:BBC newsreaders and journalists Category:BBC radio producers Category:British journalists Category:British radio personalities Category:British radio producers Category:British reporters and correspondents Category:British television producers Category:English television presenters